Red Roses And Cobwebs
by serpentqueen13
Summary: Draco Malfoy was married once, in the middle of the war, but after the loss of his first wife, marries his childhood fiancee, Pansy Parkinson. Unfortunately, the past can be hard to escape. DracoPansy, DracoMorag, SalazarRowena, LuciusNarcissa, etc.
1. Here Comes The Bride

Title: Red Roses & Cobwebs, Chapter One: Here Comes The BrideAuthor: serpentqueen13Pairings: Draco Malfoy/Pansy Parkinson, Draco Malfoy/Morag MacDougal (past), hints of Serafina Zabini/Alecto Carrow, Narcissa Black/Lucius Malfoy (past), and eventual Salazar Slytherin/Rowena Ravenclaw  
Chapter Rating: PG  
Warnings: Slight darkness in this chapter, but not much  
Summary: A widower Draco Malfoy marries childhood fiancée Pansy Parkinson, and as the crowd looks on, Narcissa Malfoy wonders if she did the right thing.  
Warning: I don't tend to be particularly kind to Pansy, but I don't see her as a vapid air head either. She was able to keep Draco's attention in school, so please, don't criticize me for some imagined hatred of the character.

The wedding guests were packed into the ballroom at Malfoy Manor for the wedding, the crème de la crème of wizarding high society. Despite the flashing rainbow of gems and silks, however, a distinctive cloud seemed to hang over the gathering, despite the noble attempts otherwise.

This wedding, unlike the groom's first, was the social event of the season--from the expensive bridal gown, and designer bridesmaid dresses, to the expensive flowers flown in from Peru, to the ice sculpture and chorus of sirens to sing for the reception. Despite all this, all the whispered conversation was circling around that first wedding, a hurried mid-war thing that only a handful of people had been able to attend. The general consensus, with a few dissenters, was that the widower had traded up.

Narcissa Malfoy, unfortunately, was one of those dissenters. She sat, her hands primly folded next to her friend Serafina Zabini, fighting the unladylike and inane desire to bite her nails, something she hadn't even done as a child, no matter what Andromeda might say to the contrary. Unlike everyone else, she knew that this wedding was for her, to make her happy, but she had her hopes that it would make her son happy as well.

"It'll make him happy." Narcissa whispered to Serafina, who had her own record for weddings. "Pansy loves him, she'll distract him from his pain, and he loved her once, he'll be able to love her again."

Serafina was not at all convinced, but she put on a brave face for her friend. "He agreed to it, after all." Serafina said with a smile. "And he'll be happier with her than alone."

"That's right." Narcissa said. "It won't do for him to be alone. After all, friendship is no replacement for love." She shook her head. "I'll never know why you didn't marry, Alecto."

Alecto Carrow, seated next to Serafina, choked at her sudden inclusion in the conversation in such an awkward manner. "I guess I just never found the right man to marry." She replied smoothly, recovering easily. "That's what I get for being Serafina's bridesmaid so often. You know what they say, always a bridesmaid and never a bride."

Narcissa shook her head and smiled at her son, who looked calm and even-tempered, and she couldn't help but compare his expression to the one she remembered from a mere three years ago, pounding on her door and begging her to hurry because his bride would think he had lost his nerve; or the way he had smiled when he had caught sight of his first wife in a modest white silk dress, commandeered to be a bridal gown before a battle—just in case.

His expression when Pansy appeared, in a frothy but tasteful white gown with a train long enough to be fit for a cathedral, was a smile, but the enthusiasm wasn't in his eyes. Narcissa had to bite the inside of her cheek when the officiating minister asked if there was anyone who would supply reason for them not to be wed.

For a moment, she could have sworn she saw a flash of red at the altar, and a figure standing between the bride and groom, but when she blinked it was gone, and apparently no one else had seen it, but she couldn't help the dread in her stomach. Still, she held fast through the vows convincing herself that Pansy would be able to pull Draco out of the depressed slump he had been in for the past year, to make him live again.

She was just glad he didn't overhear the woman behind her make a comment that made her want to turn and snap at the woman for speaking ill of the dead, and dead that had been her family and made her son so happy. "Well, after the sow's ear he had for a first wife, he's found himself a silk purse." Violetta Bulstrode was most definitely not going to be invited to any further social functions Narcissa Malfoy was holding, that was for certain.


	2. On The Roof Again

Title: Red Roses & Cobwebs, Chapter Two: On The Roof Again

Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairings: Draco Malfoy/Pansy Parkinson, Draco Malfoy/Morag MacDougal (past), Narcissa Black/Lucius Malfoy (past), and eventual Salazar Slytherin/Rowena Ravenclaw

Chapter Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Slight darkness in this chapter, but not much

Summary: While preparing for his wedding night, Draco reminisces on his past with Morag, and tries to figure out just what went so wrong.

The wedding was long, agonising, and the reception was worse. The pain was emotional, but it felt physical. He felt it through his entire body, every fibre of his very being protesting that this was so very wrong. As excruciating as it was, he longed for it to continue, an eternal wedding feast, because he knew what the wedding night would bring, and he prayed to a god he didn't believe in to give him at least that small mercy.

Unfortunately, like all things, the wedding reception came to an end, and soon enough, Draco found himself staring at his reflection when he should be undressing for his first night with his wife, and wanting nothing else but to sink into the floor or just disappear into nothingness. It had been years since he had felt anything but friendship for Pansy, and even those childish emotions he had once equated to love seemed to pale in comparison to the pain, but he pulled himself together, remembering without wanting to another wedding night.

_The wedding had been rushed, Morag's idea, before Draco went into battle for the Dark Lord, she had blushed when she said it, and looked away, shocking Draco in a good way with the suggestion. He kissed her impulsively, and then, when he allowed her to speak again, made sure that she really wanted that. _

_It had been put together in less than three hours—he hadn't even gotten to wear the kilt she had teased him about mercilessly, and she had no wedding dress, only some white silk thing that she had already had in her closet and never wore, but they had _meant it_ when they said 'I do,' and the fear was there, going into the war, that they might never see each other again, that drove them, because Morag wouldn't hide in the Manor, she was going as well to fight as she did from the shadows._

Draco forced his thoughts to stop there, with his parents and her few family members leaving, because if he recalled even the slightest bit of what had been their wedding night, he'd never leave the bathroom and that would only cause more problems.

It all sounded so easy, so good, but when he opened the door and walked into the bedroom, his stomach clenched and he had to will himself to breathe. Pansy, apparently, had been prepared, as she lay there in some filmy white negligee, waiting for him, right down to the high-heeled feathered slippers. He cleared his throat and moved over to the bed, sitting down next to her and kissing her softly.

Pansy's lips were sweet, soft, and yielding beneath his. There was the cloying taste of some sort of lip gloss and even _that _was overwhelmed by the sweetness; it turned his stomach and made it clench and his eyes close as he tried desperately not to compare the kiss and find her wanting, as he had with everything else. This was what had always been intended for him after all, since before Hogwarts, and had it not been for the war, he might have been content. He might have loved her, and it brought a small wry smile to his lips as she pulled away and he stood, having to get out of there.

How did one tell their wife kissing them made them feel nauseous? He barely paid attention to where he was going as he threw on a heavy cloak, and was surprised to find himself on the roof, looking over the landscape. Morag had come up here often, not to sleep as she had in Hogwarts, but just to be outside or when she was feeling particularly religious, as from the roof of the manor one had a very good view of Stonehenge.

_They had been happy for nearly a year and four months; the kind of happy Draco had been afraid to be for a long time, but with the way their lives seem to fall into place it was impossible not to be. Even before the war ended she had gone out of her way to make him feel human, to keep him from losing himself in the pain and darkness of it all, Then the war ended and the Boy-Who-Lived managed to survive and defeat the Dark Lord, thanks in part to information Draco had given him._

_And then Morag had gone_ shopping, _and some stupid idiot had been frightened by her and started throwing hexes and curses like nobody's business, as if he knew what he was doing. Somehow, she had managed to Apparate home, and put her bags down, before going down to the parlour for tea and collapsing in Draco's arms. _

_Nothing had looked wrong, and somehow he had managed to get Gimme, the ever-faithful servant to get her cousin, while he cradled her in his arms on the floor, trying not to panic and begging her mentally to just wake up, but in the minute and odd seconds it had taken for Marcella to arrive she had died in his arms._

Draco spent his wedding night there, on the cold roof, crying despite his mental refusals that he would not, his knees curled to his chest as he watched the moon over Stonehenge.


	3. Despise Myself For What You've Done

Title: Red Roses & Cobwebs, Chapter 3: Despise Myself For What You've Done

Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairings: Draco Malfoy/Pansy Parkinson, Draco Malfoy/Morag MacDougal (past), references to Serafina Zabini/Alecto Carrow, Narcissa Black/Lucius Malfoy (past), and eventual Salazar Slytherin/Rowena Ravenclaw  
Chapter Rating: PG  
Warnings: Slight darkness  
Summary: Pansy accustoms herself to life at Malfoy Manor as its latest mistress and wife, but is thrown by a surprise visit a few weeks later.

Pansy was trying hard. She was playing the loving and doting wife as best she could, struck by how different it was from her dreams of this place. There was a sort of aura pervading the Manor, an idea that everything should remain just as it was, and that Pansy could not abide. Draco was becoming obsessed with the Manor as it was, and it was far from homey or even elegant, so she began making changes. She loved Draco, and he knew it, and she knew he loved her, even if he wouldn't say it. She knew he loved him, even though when they lay in bed beside each other, and she kissed his cheek and told him she loved him, he answered only with a hoarse, almost pained: "_I know, Pans_."

She took her frustrations out on the decor, and the servant. When Draco had dropped the help of the Manor to a single house-elf she had no idea, but it was rather annoying, as the thing took her orders, but constantly looked as if she would be punished for it. For example, when Pansy summoned it the one day, demanding that it remove the hideous sword that hung over the mantle in the parlour and put it as far from sight as she could manage, the thing had dared to argue with her that master would not like it.

Pansy ordered, and then told it to go iron it's ears for it's impudence, and when Draco came home, she saw his eyes travel to the spot where the black metal thing had hung, and his eyes harden, but he said nothing. Pansy was victorious, and quite sure he liked the changes she was making, and took to exploring more and more of the Manor, areas of it she had never seen as a child.

It was a rainy day, wet and thundering in the distance, the kind of day Pansy hated, that made her skin seem oilier and her hair frizz, and so, she explored. It was late, almost evening when she came across a locked door and snapped for the elf. "Get me the key for this room." She demanded imperiously.

Gimme stared at the door for a long moment and then shook her head, banging it against the stone for disobeying orders. "Oh, no no no, Mistress Pansy, Gimme cannot do that, no, that room is not opened."

"Get me the key!" Pansy repeated shrilly, and obediently, looking balefully at her, Gimme did as she was ordered, clinging to her pillowcase, the threat of clothes ringing in her ears.

When Pansy opened the room, the servant squeaked and Disapparated away, as if a cardinal sin was being committed, but Pansy paid it no heed, it was only a servant, after all. She turned around and lit it, surprised to find herself in a dressing room of sorts, struck by the assortment of varied clothes. There were heavy furs and skimpy negligees, gowns and dragonhide, and in the centre of it all was a large rack holding jewel case after jewel case. She ran her hands over the richness of it all, touching a damask corset in reverence. She turned to the jewels and began to open them, staring at emeralds, sapphires, rubies the colour of blood and aquamarines true to their name.

This, all of this was hers; she was mistress of this, of Malfoy Manor and all it held. What struck her odd was that for all of the diamonds, all of the precious stones, the most highly exalted, even among the tiaras and crowns that she found, was an opal necklace. It was beautiful, yes, but the changing stones set in gold was almost simple, and she shook her head. It was the only one that rested on a plush velvet jeweller's bust, waiting to be taken up.

She reached out to touch it, and just before her hand grazed the stone, her false French manicured nails a hair's breadth away from the contact, her wrist was captured in a soft hand, harshly, all but twisting her arm out of its socket. "Are you trying to kill yourself?"

Pansy's breath caught at the cruel tone, one she knew well, but that had never been turned on her. "What are you talking about, love?" She queried, her voice rough and eyes fearful. "I'm your wife, the Malfoy jewels are mine now. I just found this place."

"That necklace is cursed, you ninny." Draco said, his voice a growl, the anger indistinguishable from the sadness he was feeling. "It would kill you the moment you touched it. It isn't meant for you." He turned her forcibly and all but threw her from the room, running a hand over the gold of the necklace in question. "None of this is meant for you." He turned off the light and closed the door gently. "Those aren't Malfoy jewels."

He didn't come to bed that night.

It was a few days later, a weekend, that Pansy was heading out to do some shopping with Daphne and try to keep up the charade of the happy marriage, when she found a young woman at the door as she was preparing to leave. "May I help you?" Pansy asked, raising an eyebrow. "Charities need to make appointments you know."

The girl smiled, waif-like as she was, and holding a large bouquet of flowers. The blood red poppies and rhododendrons among the tamer dahlias, zinnias, hollyhocks and asters, the same shade as her hair. "Brenna came to bring Other Brother flowers." She said with a small smile, bouncing slightly. "Other Brother needs flowers today, and since Sissy is not here to bring in the holiday flowers for Other Brother, Brenna must do it."

Pansy's eyebrow disappeared into her dark hair. She knew Draco had no sister. "You must be mistaken." She said coolly, thinking the girl simple, or just plain stupid. "You have the wrong house." Really, how could anyone mistake stately Malfoy Manor for anything but itself?

"No." Brenna said with a small frown. "Mistaken Brenna is not. Live here, Other Brother does. Sleep here, does Sissy. Brenna has brought holiday flowers, yes."

Pansy was confused and fed up, about ready to call Gimme and have the obviously touched girl sent to Saint Mungo's, but then Draco appeared, and before Pansy could react, the slim thing had thrown her emaciated body at him, hugging him tightly and holding the flowers against his back.

Pansy watched in something akin to shock as Draco's eyes widened, his body tensed, and then very slowly, his arms went around the girl, his voice choked as he spoke. "Hallo, Brenna."


	4. The Reasons Why

Title: Red Roses & Cobwebs, Chapter 4: The Reasons Why  
Pairings: Draco Malfoy/Pansy Parkinson, Draco Malfoy/Morag MacDougal (past), references to Serafina Zabini/Alecto Carrow, Narcissa Black/Lucius Malfoy (past), and eventual Salazar Slytherin/Rowena RavenclawRating: PG  
Warnings: Angst  
Summary: Draco tries to live up to expectations, but finds himself lacking.

Draco knew without a doubt that he wasn't being a good husband to Pansy, and he tried to regret it, but when he wasn't hurting he was just too numb to feel. He knew she was dissatisfied and frustrated--what woman wouldn't be, to lie next to her husband night after night and have him not bear to touch her? He tried to be a good husband. He said nothing when she spent inane amounts of money on ridiculous things, or added frills to everything.

He didn't go down to the dungeons after waking from nightmares--not after the first time he did so and she became so upset, finding him there. He knew Pansy couldn't understand what he had gone through during the war, not when she had hidden herself away. He gave her everything material that he could, because there was nothing left of him to give. What the war had fractured she couldn't understand and didn't want, and it didn't belong to her anyway.

He couldn't help but get angry with her at moments, though, and the old sadism and cruelty would creep in, especially with the little things that she would do. It seemed to him as if she was trying to erase Morag, or to become her and he didn't know what was worse. Pansy was her mother's daughter: beautiful, vain, and single-minded. Draco knew that she loved him; the him she thought he was, the ideal she had fallen in love with in childhood, but that wasn't him.

Draco had almost struck her the day he found her in his odd haven, Morag's old dressing room, where almost everything was just as she left it--save for the necklace she had been wearing that day, the necklace she wore every day--and a surge of emotion that was and wasn't his welled up in his stomach when Pansy tried to claim it.

And then, in a not-entirely unwelcome way, his past all but knocked him off his feet in the form of Brenna MacDougal-MacFusty, Morag's younger sister. He could tell from the glint in her eyes that Pansy was getting angry, and Draco was glad of it, glad of a show of emotion other than pity or love. He could deal with those no longer. Besides, even though she usually annoyed him, Brenna's visit made him feel better.

"Hello, Other Brother!" Brenna said happily. "Brenna brought Other Brother flowers for the holiday. Other Brother _must_ have flowers for the Solstice, else the gods will be sore, and Other Brother means too much to Brenna and everyone for that."

"Thank you, Brenna." Draco said, smiling a bit bitterly as he released her, calling for Gimme, and instructing the elf that bowed low to Brenna, to put the flowers where they belonged. He remembered all-to-well the holidays that Morag--heathen through and through and proud of it--had celebrated and drawn him into as well.

"Little Bee drew Other Brother a picture for his birthday, but Big Brother would not let her use the owl, so Brenna brought that as well." She handed Draco a square of parchment, and watched in amusement as he looked at it, chuckled dryly, and folded it back up.

"I don't think you've met my wife Pansy, have you?" Draco asked, falling into civility as Pansy began tapping her shoe against the stones in a staccato rhythm that bounced off the walls and ceiling, magnifying itself until it sounded like buzzing bees, forcing away his thoughts of the past. "Pansy, this is Brenna MacDougal-MacFusty. Brenna, my wife Pansy." He hid his smirk at the look on Pansy's face, squished and sour. He even got a sort of malicious amusement out of it when Brenna called her 'Second Wife,' in the way that Brenna always nicknamed people.

He married Pansy for his mother, which was the same reason he reminded himself to get up in the morning, to keep breathing, to eat. He was all Narcissa had now, and he couldn't bear to cause his mother the pain he was feeling, not after how hard she had taken Lucius's death. If it hadn't been for her, he would have just gone to sleep next to his first wife, and not moved.

He drew Brenna into the parlour, and smirked to himself as he asked about how her life was, how things were at the land, even though it hurt him to hear it, it comforted him at the same time. Sometimes, he found, the things that could make you the happiest could make you the saddest as well.

Pansy's face remain squished, deepening to pitted as the drawing came out again, addressed in a scrawl to '_Uncle Dreugan_' and a scrawled picture of a blonde stick-person brandishing a sword-stick at a green blob of a dragon, while on a broom.


End file.
